Campaign Notebook

Former Florida Schools Chief Seeks Graham's Senate Seat

School issues and statewide elections have become as indelibly
linked as sunshine and thin beachwear in Florida, a vital political
battleground in 2004. So it seems logical that one of the state's most
closely watched races for federal office in recent memory has drawn
Betty Castor, a former teacher, university president, and Florida
commissioner of education.

Ms. Castor, 62, who served as state schools chief from 1987 to 1993,
is seeking the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated next year by Bob
Graham, a Democrat who announced last month that he would not seek a
fourth term. Ms. Castor and others had declared an interest in the seat
months ago, when Sen. Graham was still a contender for the 2004
Democratic presidential nomination, an effort he has since
abandoned.

She faces competition in the August 2004 Democratic primary from a
field that includes Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas and U.S. Rep.
Peter Deutsch of Fort Lauderdale. A poll in the Orlando Sentinel
last month showed Ms. Castor leading the Democratic race. Republican
hopefuls in the election so far include former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum
and the speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Johnnie
Byrd.

"Education has been and will continue to be a big issue in Florida,"
Ms. Castor said in an interview last week. "I've seen education at all
levels, and it has really helped me understand the synergy between
education and the economy, which is of great importance to people
across the state."

Ms. Castor vowed that as a senator, she would seek increases in the
maximum Pell Grant award for low-income college students, as well as
changes to the No Child Left Behind Act that, she says, would make the
law fairer to states and school districts.

"You have an awful lot of testing going on and tremendous
confusion," she said.

—Sean Cavanagh

The Kerry Plan

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has unfurled plans to set up a new trust
fund for public schools and rewrite key portions of the No Child Left
Behind Act.

The Democratic presidential contender's idea, announced Nov. 25, is to
circumvent the annual appropriations process in Congress by locking in
federal aid that would be dedicated to No Child Left Behind Act
programs and special education. A fact sheet issued by his campaign
estimates current spending under that law at about $24 billion, and
says his fund would ensure $35 billion per year by 2008.

He said that with the National Education Trust Fund, "never again
will teachers and parents and students have to worry about the whims of
politicians in Washington."

Mr. Kerry also said he wants to revise the bipartisan No Child Left
Behind law, which he voted for in 2001. He criticizes the measure for
judging schools solely on test scores, saying he would change the
federal definition for making "adequate yearly progress," which is at
the heart of the law's accountability provisions.

—Erik W. Robelen

Spanish Inquisition

A centrist Democratic group wants to get out the message that
President Bush broke his promises on education and has been anything
but a buen amigo to the Latino community.

The New Democrat Network, a Washington-based group that promotes
moderate candidates for office, has begun airing commercials on
Spanish-language TV in Orlando, Fla., and Las Vegas that criticize the
president for, among other things, not fully funding the No Child Left
Behind law.

"He promised us he would invest $18 billion for the poorest
schools," one ad says in Spanish. "But now he wants to spend billions
less." The ad refers to the original agreement under the school
improvement law to subsidize Title I schools at $18.5 billion in the
2004 budget, according to the Democrat network. The president's fiscal
2004 budget proposed only $12.4 billion for Title I, two-thirds of what
was agreed on, the group says.

"President Bush, why did you break your promise?" a young girl asks
in the ad. The Bush administration has consistently argued that ample
funding is being provided for states and districts to carry out the
law.

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